Your procedure for bringing up shadows/masking techniques

[peter_popp1]

<p>Hi all - <br>

I've been trying to learn about luminosity masks in PS for bringing up shadows, because I have some fall landscapes I plan on shooting that usually have problematic shadow areas. Aside from how you generate your mask, I'd like to know your thoughts on how you generate the lightened layer that shows through the mask. There are a number of fundamental ways you can do this that I'm experimenting with:</p>

<ul>

<li>Shoot a second exposure, set to expose the shadow area properly, and copy it into the main image. This will work for stationary landscapes, but not for images with moving features, and could cause alignment issues.</li>

<li>With only one exposure, double process the raw file with one of the images developed for the shadow areas.</li>

<li>Bring only one version of the image into PS, and then bring up the detail in the shadow areas in a duplicate layer using curves, a shadow/highlight adjustment layer via a Smart Filter, or an adjustment layer with a blending mode to lighten the shadows.</li>

</ul>

<p>I would like to hear your preferred method, and why you use it.<br>

Thanks,<br>

Peter</p>

 

[tom_mann1]

<p>Hi Peter -</p>

<p>Unfortunately, this has to be a quick response, because I have to head out, but ...</p>

<p>a) I never do #1 any more. I use HDR techniques with gentle, realistic settings for the tone mapping algorithm. I strongly prefer this general approach over your (b) and © techniques because they will increase shadow noise, often to the point of being unacceptable. I find that using HDR software is much faster, easier and more controllable than trying to blend the two exposures manually.</p>

<p>b) I've seen a few people suggest approach #2, but I've never found it to be better (for a single exposure image) than simply bringing up the shadows within PS. The argument against approach #2 is that after the two different processing techniques, there still is no more detail or less noise present in the final images than in either one alone, so I would only use this approach, if it was particularly convenient. For example, the shadows might need many other changes (besides simple lightening) compared to the lighter tones (eg, different color balance, more noise filtering, etc.), so it might be easier to make these changes all in one place, instead of with many different PS layers. Operationally, I hardly ever do this.</p>

<p>c) Personally, I use all of the methods you asked about in your point #3. I'm not sure I can enumerate the pros and cons of each in this msg, but they certainly do work. If I remember correctly, there is a reasonable discussion of the pros and cons of these lightening techniques in Katrin Eismann's books, as well as the very nice book on restoration by Ctien:<br>

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Restoration-Start-Finish-photographs/dp/0240808142/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250016018&sr=1-13</p>

<p>Gotta run. </p>

<p>Tom M<br>

Washington, DC</p>

<p>PS - Don't forget the use of the "screen" blending mode for lightening. Also, become very familiar with the "blend if" sliders and splitting them to get a nice blend between areas treated differently.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>There are a ton of ways to deal with this issue. Here are a few:</p>

<ol>

<li>Select the layer containing your original image and then do Image --> Adjustments --> Shadows/Highlights. Try raising the first value between 1 and perhaps (rarely) as high as 5.</li>

<li>You can make a feathered selection around the area needing adjustment and the use a curve layer to work with the darkest tones. </li>

<li>A variation on #2 is to to create the curve layer, make the layer mode "screen," create a curve that steepens the curve near the dark end, delete the mask, create a new "hide all" mask, and then paint in the areas that need a boost. There is more to this than I can explain in a short post but it is a very powerful technique - and there is a counterpart that also works to add some detail to very bright areas using a multiply mode.</li>

<li>Make that second exposure. One is exposed for the highlights and the other for the shadows. Bring both into PS and create a mask on the upper layer - generally the one that is overall best. Paint the mask to reveal some detail from the lower layer. </li>

</ol>

<p>Dan</p>

[rudymcfarlane]

<p>http://www.goodlight.us/writing/tutorials.html</p>

[rene gm]

<p>What about adding shadow light in ACR?</p>

[peter_popp1]

<p>Hi Rene - That works well when when the required changes are pretty minor, but otherwise I notice that the non-shadow dark tones start to washed out and unnecessarily noisy. That's why I mention above the possibility of double processing the raw (using either shadow fill or an exposure adjustment to bring up the shadows), and than masking that layer to hide the part of the image you don't want to bring up (and introduce noise to).</p>